Abstract

Nonlinear electromagnetic perturbations whose characteristic scale length is shorter than the ion Larmor radius are studied using a hydrodynamic description for the electrons, and a kinetic description for the ions, in nonisothermal, nonuniform, magnetized plasma. It is shown that ion drift‐Alfvén perturbations may be linearly unstable in the presence of a parallel shear plasma flow. In the fully nonlinear regime a solution in the form of a moving double vortex is found.